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The History of the Touch Guitar-
This
picture of Jimmy Schuster with his father Art playing one of my
early Touch Guitars(Duo-lectar) is one of my favorites. Jimmy was one of
the best
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Dave Bunker with the
first
Touch Guitar (1956).
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This is the very first Double Neck touch type musical instrument ever
patented, Notice the date in the script below the photo (1956).
This first Touch Guitar which I patented as the Duo-Lectar™ was
made by my Father Joe Bunker and I in 1955. We didn't have money to buy
fret wire so we made the frets out of an old chain saw stinger (blade).
The upper neck was a 24.5" Guitar neck and the lower neck was a
30" six string bass neck, later Irby Mandrell, Barbara's great father
talked me into making the bass neck into a four string 32" scale, Irby
even helped me build that model, also notice the first ever string mute on
the upper guitar neck, this actually was the basis for the first patent
#2,989,884 which was granted on June 27, 1961.
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Dave Bunker with his
second Touch Guitar
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Lots of controversy exist over who did what and when on the Touch/Tap
Method of play, well here it is" and this is right, Actually Merl
Travis was one of the first artist to play using two hands on the
fingerboard. The first artist to really bring it out and do something with
was Jimmie Webster, who wrote the first touch System method book for a
single neck type electric guitar played with two hand tapping. I was the
first to build and patent one you could tap on both necks which was made
posible by damping each neck at the nut as refered to in patent #2,989,884
filed in 1957 and issued in 1961 and also wrote and copyrighted the first
double neck Method Book, One of the earlier great contributors has been
Emmett Chapman with the Stick design, which is probably the best known of
the touch/Tap type instruments. Some great Artist followed like, Edward
VanHalen and others. Most of the touch/Tap style instruments incorporated
my manual mute (Duo-Lectar ™) into there instruments.
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Jimmy Webster playing his
great white falcon Gretsch guitar
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One Gentleman who pursued the history of Touch style play was Traktor
Topaz. I have copies of the original Jimmie Webster book and of my own
method book if anyone is interested.
Thanks, Dave Bunker
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Check these other great pages too!
Touch
Guitar Details
Touch
Guitar Sounds
Touch
Guitar FAQs
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